Writing, for me, is akin to verbal photography. Photography can be an art form or a casual habit to capture moments in life. Similarly, writing allows me to capture a memory, a realization, a thought, or an elaboration of a question as I ponder and develop the idea. It serves to share something important, dear, or potentially useful to someone, if read at the right place and time. Unfortunately, I have no control over this, but I believe in the twists and synchronicities of life, allowing a good chance for writer and reader to find each other.
A few weeks ago, I revisited the topic of writing during a coaching session. I’ve always loved writing, journaling, and reflecting, whether on beautiful paper notebooks or various digital platforms. This practice has served multiple purposes for me over the years. As a child, my hobbies included competitive go-karting and practicing traditional karate, alongside corresponding with people I met through pen pal programs. I cherished writing and receiving letters, delving into the daily and emotional lives of others.
Despite my passion, I was never naturally gifted with writing skills and had little opportunity to develop them beyond school activities and participating in literature analysis competitions, where I often received subjective positive feedback rather than academic recognition. This lack of change was evident in my second year of university studies when I analyzed a poem written by a poet in a concentration camp. My reflection, which I excitedly submitted, was met with disheartening feedback criticizing my simplistic and naive style as immature and lacking academic depth. This criticism, especially without constructive feedback or mentoring, overshadowed the special recognition my novel received three years earlier from famous journalists, deeply impacting my confidence in writing.
Recently, revisiting the topic of writing in a coaching session (I love both coaching and being coached), we explored my relationship with writing, including my fears and expectations. It was suggested that I might be a perfectionist, an idea I initially resisted. I value quality, which, in my experience, is distinct from perfectionism driven by fear of criticism or failure to accept the always remaining potential improvements. Etymologically, ‘perfect’ means completed or finished. Therefore, perfectionism is not my credo. I believe that life’s essence is in its processes, continuously evolving beyond what we currently know.
Ideas from coaching often bring new insights. Today, during my morning hike, I reflected on Carl Jung’s concepts of perfection and completion as proposed in his book “Answers to Job.” Jung differentiates perfection not as flawlessness but as the ability to connect polarities within the psyche, such as conscious and unconscious, good and evil, complete and incomplete. On the other hand, the concept of completion is about integration through a deeper understanding of ourselves and the world, moving toward a more complete, integrated worldview and self, far beyond mere achievement, success or perfection.
This resonated deeply with me, elucidating my anxieties about writing. To me, writing feels like a 2D dimension that fails to capture every perspective of a phenomenon and its interconnections. I fear that we define the world by what we can articulate within a limited space, neglecting what remains uncaptured in our momentary “shots” of thought.
Therefore, seeing any written work as a momentary verbal or linguistic photo implies that it’s just a fraction of one’s life experience, with thoughts that need to evolve and change. What we write is not the representation of who we are, but a snapshot of who we were at that moment, a manifestation of our complex identity in constant evolution.
